Beceem

More perspective on mobile WiMAX certification

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:59:56 -0400

Last week the WiMAX Forum announced the first mobile WiMAX products to receive a certified seal of approval. Four base stations and four subscriber units for the 2.3 GHz band were approved from Posdata, Runcom Technologies, Samsung Electronics and Sequans Communications.

But these products only received Wave 1 certification, which doesn't include the features such as MIMO that operators are asking for. WiMAX chip maker Beceem has said the move has little practical benefit since operators want Wave-2 certification, and it saw no point in building Wave 1 products.

"... Due to the misleading statements about the impact of this Wave 1 certification it is important to point out that [this] certification means 'conformance testing', which can not be confused with product performance and interoperability testing, which operators really and only care about," the company said in a statement emailed to FierceBroadbandWireless.

Current Analysis' Peter Jarich, however, had a different perspective on the WiMAX Forum's move. "We are taking a positive stance on the WiMAX Forum's certification of initial mobile WiMAX products," Jarich wrote in a note. "Where operators have been launching 802.16e-based products for a while, certification (and the interoperability it promises) is expected to drive additional interest in the technology along with new network launches and network expansions. And, while the certifications are based on a 2.3 GHz profile (Wave-1) that may have limited global value, they do pave the way for the Wave-2 certifications most WiMAX operators have been eagerly awaiting."

Related articles:
Xanadoo upgrading to mobile WiMAX Report on Xanadoo's WiMAX upgrade
On the Hot Seat with Ron Resnick Report on WiMAX Forum's Ron Resnick

Sprint launches three WiMAX markets as planned

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:59:57 -0500

Sprint has soft launched its WiMAX network this week in Chicago and Baltimore-Washington D.C. as planned. The initial trial is limited to Sprint employees only and the carrier has not disclosed what hardware the users will have to connect to the network. Nokia and Samsung have both inked deals with the carrier for WiMAX-enabled devices. These initial test markets will become commercially available during the first quarter of next year and Sprint expects a full commercial launch during the second quarter of 2008.

In related news, WiMAX chipmaker Beceem announced the completion of initial interoperability testing between Beceem's chipset and Sprint's WiMAX infrastructure as part of the Sprint Mobile WiMAX device launch preparations.

"This is a big deal because it signifies the technical readiness of the overall solution. It means the network is ready to go in 2008," said Beceem's Lars Johnsson, vice president of business development, in an interview with FierceBroadbandWireless. "It's really the building block for everything else to follow

Big deal because signifies the technical readiness of the overall solution. On top of that is product availability and channel and distribution models, subscriber management and it's really the building block for everything else to follow.

For more on Sprint's WiMAX trial and Beceem's announcement:
- read this article from InformationWeek
- check out this release

Related articles:
Forsee out at Sprint, WiMAX plans questioned Article
FiberTower inks WiMAX backhaul deal with Sprint Article
Sprint's WiMAX deal to undergo a tweak? Article

Smart Antenna Alliance formed to address WiMAX

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 06:59:54 -0400

Navini, Beceem, Fujitsu and Runcom announced the formation of the "Smart Antenna RF Test" Alliance (SMART) which is designed to promote beamforming and beamformed MIMO, technology included in the mobile WiMAX Wave 2 standard.

"The capacity and coverage benefits of combining beamforming with MIMO are very compelling offering up to double the capacity with twice the coverage of non-beamformed systems," said Sai Subramanian, Navini's vice president of product management. "This Alliance ensures broad availability of CPE devices that have full capability of beamforming and beamformed MIMO."

The SMART Alliance plans to publish a system performance baseline for the smart antenna features adopted by the WiMAX Forum for the 802.16e mobile WiMAX standard.

For more about the SMART Alliance:
- read this article from Mobile Broadband News

Beceem taking cue from Qualcomm in WiMAX chip business

Lynnette Luna — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 06:59:58 -0400

Qualcomm has given the industry a nice blueprint when it comes to becoming the dominant supplier of CDMA and WCDMA chips in the industry. It's a blueprint that WiMAX chip vendor Beceem appears to be emulating, although minus the hefty intellectual property ownership.

Like Qualcomm, Beceem is working hard to stay ahead of the market when it comes to releasing generations of chipsets, giving device vendors no choice but to use the company's chipsets as a stopgap measure before they can come up to par with their own--if ever. Sound familiar?

To wit, Beceem is poised to sample its fourth-generation solution later this year--a feat that is far ahead of any WiMAX chip competitor in the market. As such, major device manufacturers Motorola and Samsung--two main suppliers for Sprint Nextel's WiMAX rollout that want to develop their own chipsets--have made agreements with Beceem. In March, Beceem announced that Motorola selected the company's MS120 mobile WiMAX chipset for use in certain models of its first-generation WiMAX customer premise equipment (CPE) and Beceem-supplied PCMCIA cards. Samsung selected Beceem in February as one of its major mobile WiMAX chipset suppliers, while Sanyo chose Beceem's BCS200 chipset as the foundation for its entry into the mobile WiMAX handset market.

"We've been field testing for 18 months, while most of the other WiMAX chip companies are now getting out in the field," David Patterson, vice president of marketing with Beceem, said in an interview. "We took the approach that we wanted to get out in the field as fast as possible so we could learn about OFDMA."

Beceem also took a cue from successful chip vendors in the mobile world. Early on, the company came to market with the strategy of providing both baseband and RF for mobile WiMAX. All of the chip companies left standing in the GSM, CDMA and WCDMA markets are those that have both the baseband and the RF.

Indeed, the WiMAX chip market could very well repeat history. Manufacturers in both the GSM and CDMA world embarked on their own chip strategies early on, only to spin off their chip efforts or abandon them entirely as companies with a single focus on developing chips began to dominate, especially in the more complex CDMA world. OFDMA is just as--if not more--complex than CDMA. Beceem could be a mighty beneficiary.

I would wager that once Qualcomm sees a significant market for WiMAX (it already acquired TeleCIS Wireless' system-on-a-chip engineering assets for OFDMA), Beceem will be a prime target. After all, Qualcomm is extremely familiar with Beceem's go-to-market strategy.--Lynnette

ALSO NOTED: London passes New York with most WiFi access points; Security not keeping pace with WiFi deployments; and much more

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 06:59:51 -0400

> London has passed up New York City as the financial center with the most WiFi access points in the world, according to a new survey from EMC division RSA Security. Article

> Security is not keeping up with WiFi deployments. Article

> Navini Networks said it will develop mobile WiMAX subscriber modems with ASUS, a Taiwanese hardware vendor. Article

> WiMAX chip maker Beceem has chosen Anadigics power amplifiers for its BCS200 chipset reference designs. Release

> Altair Semiconductor, an Israel-based maker of WiMAX chips, said it received $18 million in a second round of funding from four VCs. Article